How to Compost in a Chicago Apartment

You’re probably reading this because you believe it’s important to reuse materials where we can. Here’s another way you can cut down your weekly garbage even further: composting.

Composting allows you to divert all of the food scraps that you’re throwing in your garbage can to be processed into a new material and reused. Banana peels. Kale stems. Apple cores. Sound familiar? Maybe a few of those are in your trash can right this minute? Instead, they could be composted into soil.

What is composting?

Composting is the act of diverting food scraps and plant-based items (think paper) from the landfill by allowing them to decompose back into rich soil. This finished soil is also called compost. Food can’t properly decompose in a landfill because of, among other things, a lack of oxygen. It instead emits greenhouse gases like methane when it’s added to a landfill rather than composted.

Composting your food scraps has benefits for you (no more taking out wet, stinky trash bags each week), the planet (reducing emissions from landfills and the amount of landfill space necessary to store our trash), and farmlands (let’s get that soil growing even more food to eat, compost the scraps, and use it to grow more food!).

You’ll often hear of folks composting in a bin in their backyard. But if you live in an apartment or condo and you don’t have a backyard, you can still compost.

Pick-Up Services

Enter the compost pick-up service. For $20 - $40 a month, depending on how often you require pickups, you can pay for a service to do your composting for you.

Here’s how it works: They’ll drop off an empty five-gallon bucket for you, which you could store under your sink, in a corner (it’s a conversation starter), or on your balcony.

You’ll slowly add your food scraps as you make them. Squash rinds, the berries you didn’t get a chance to eat before they went moldy, coffee grounds from your morning cup, eggshells: all these (and pretty much everything else) can go straight into the bin.

Then, the service will pick up the bin weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly (you don’t have to be home during the pick-up time, luckily) and leave you a fresh empty bin to start filling all over again. They’ll take care of composting the food scraps into actual soil (or compost); all you have to do is keep them separate from your other trash.

Cost: $20-$40 per monthUnique Benefits: Ease. Regularly scheduled pickups - sometimes by bike! Get started: There are four major compost pick-up providers that service households in Chicago, each servicing a slightly different area. To see the full list and figure out which one is right for you, visit Zero Waste Chicago’s compost resource page.

Drop-off Services

Another alternative is to take your food scraps to a collection site. Several farmers’ markets and community gardens around the City take food scraps for compost.

Cost: Free to a few dollars, depending on locationUnique benefits: Low-cost, and especially convenient for farmers’ market regulars.Get started: To find a drop-off location near you, visit Zero Waste Chicago’s compost resource page and scroll down to “drop-off locations.”

DIY Vermicomposting (aka: Worm composting)

You could also vermicompost at home, which requires keeping a worm bin and adding food scraps and paper. It’s perfect for all of you animal lovers out there and for folks who are in the mood for a good DIY. The worms eat your food scraps and turn them into soil - almost literally before your eyes - but this method does require a bit more care since you have to make sure the worms can thrive.

Cost: DIY bin = $0-$20, red wiggler worms are around $40 a pound. Unique Benefits: You get valuable nutrient rich worm poop castings from your scraps. Great for gardens, fun for kids. Get started: Figure out a spot to keep your worm babies, then grab a plastic bin and build a home from them. Then, it’s time to get the worms themselves. Look online for shops who will ship "red wrigglers" which are generally considered best for composting.

FAQs

You probably have a few questions - here are a few we frequently get:

- Will storing scraps for pickup service stink up my kitchen?

Nope. The lid of the bin closes very, very tightly, so no smell will escape as long as the lid is fully closed. To minimize opening and closing the bucket, try keeping a bowl of food scraps in your fridge or freezer, or get a small container for your countertop, then transfer it to the bucket every few days. It’s neither smelly or gross.

-I eat meat and dairy. Will I be able to compost those?

Most likely, yes! Some pick-up services do accept meat and dairy, and some don’t. Before you sign up, make sure to read the list of things that your service will accept to make sure they take these.

-Will I miss taking out the trash now that I’m making so much less of it?

No, no you won’t. We pinky promise.

And, a little more info:

Regardless of the method you choose, you’ll want to make sure you know the ins and outs of what you can compost because it varies by method and provider.

For example, worms can’t handle pineapples, community gardens can’t take meat scraps, and some of those plastic “compostable” cups you get at restaurants are only compostable in commercial setups. When you sign up or commit, spend five minutes making a list of what can you in your compost and stick it on your fridge where you can refer to it as often as it takes to get the hang of things!

The key thing to remember, for the most part, though? If it grows, it goes.

Myth that you can’t compost if you live in an apartment? Officially busted. Happy composting, Chicago!

Celia RistowLitterless

Celia writes Litterless, a blog about zero waste living that has been featured in The Guardian, Popular Science, and Refinery 29. She also co-founded Zero Waste Chicago, the nonprofit organization working to move Chicago to zero waste.